Dreams Only Last for a Night
by PrincessBellePrinceAdam
Summary: Your dream is always the same.


_A/N: I wrote this with the intention of it being a companion piece to my fic "Let's Walk D__own the Road that has No End" but you can probably read it as a standalone. Title is taken from "Stay Awake" by All Time Low because I'm bad at naming things and it fit._

_I promise the next fic I write for them is going to be fluffy. Promise. _

**Dreams Only Last for a Night**

Your dream is always the same.

_You sit in an office. It looks like the ones you remember the teachers at Xavier's having. You are looking over homework assignments while a small girl colors at a children's play table in one corner. You look to her from time to time and a smile forms on your face._

_Then you hear the sound of someone clearing their throat. You'd know that profile anywhere. The person who has come to see you is Bobby._

_The girl throws her crayons down and dashes across the room. "Daddy!" she cries joyously. Bobby laughs and swings her up into his arms. He plants a kiss on the top of her head._

"_Oh, my girl," he says fondly. You always feel yourself smile again as you approach the two of them._

"_You know," you say, "you should be careful who you call your girl while your wife is in earshot."_

_Bobby's easy grin stretches across his features. "She's not the jealous type." This is always said like it's an old joke between the two of you, comfortable and familiar. You give him a kiss. Your daughter makes a noise of protest._

_Bobby sets her down carefully and tells her to gather her crayons. She packs them into a small backpack adorned with _Beauty and the Beast_ characters and then proudly shows off her drawing to Bobby. "It's beautiful, kitten," Bobby tells her affectionately. He ruffles her hair and helps her put the drawing into the backpack so it stays flat. You pack up the rest of the assignments you have to look over._

_The three of you fall into step together, each of you holding one of your daughter's hands. You pass through the halls of the school together, smiling and nodding at people who in real life have been missing or dead for years. It always makes you sad._

When you wake up, you always struggle to catch your breath. This dream, this snippet of a happy family in a safer world, is somehow worse than any nightmare you have ever had. And you have had your share of nightmares: camps, collars, the crippling fear of being branded, tortured, experimented on…

And yet, the dream is worse.

These dreams show you everything you wanted out of life wrapped up in a pretty bow and it's held tantalizingly just out of your reach. Maybe in some parallel universe you live this charmed life, but in this one you do not.

Tonight, though, it's a little different. You sit up as your breaths come to you in gasps. You are sure you'd rather have the nightmares. You can deal with the realities you have already lived through. It seems too cruel to ask you to dream of a reality you have _not_ lived through and most likely never will.

Your dream was a little longer than usual this time. You remember walking into the mansion's garage and carefully securing your dream-daughter in a car seat. The three of you headed home to a cozy house in suburban Westchester, not too far from the school but far enough that it is your own space.

Your dream-daughter's name is Cassie. You didn't know that until tonight. You don't know where you came up with it or what, if anything, it's short for, but it does have a ring to it. _Cassie Drake._

He is always so in sync with you. You hear the thin mattress groan as he sits up. A sigh escapes him and a second later you feel his arm snake across your back so he can squeeze your shoulder. He turns toward you. When you don't look back at him, he sighs again before pressing his cool lips to your temple.

"You don't want to talk about it," he guesses. He knows you well.

You face him. The lights are dim but you can still tell he's looking at you with concern. There's not much he can do to make your life easier, but he always wants to try. Even though so much has changed over the years, you still see glimpses of that boy who took you ice skating. He just wants to make you feel better, even now.

"I'm okay." His face creases into a frown and he opens his mouth to protest. "Just go back to sleep, Bobby, okay? I promise I'm fine."

Bobby doesn't believe you, but you expected this. He pulls you close to him, which in such a small space means you are now in his lap. It's nice though, being so near to him. His embrace is cool, soothing. You rest your head against his chest and in turn his cheek presses against your hair.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of. We've all had nightmares. You can tell me." His words come in a whisper.

This is his forte. For as long as you have known him he has always known just what to say and do to get you to talk. Bobby always tells you that you are the strong one, and maybe you are. But he is your rock. He is where you find your strength.

Bobby rubs circles on your back in a further attempt to coax the words from your lips. You have a flash of dream-Bobby doing this to Cassie and it pains you. He would have been such a good father, you think, and now he never will be. You will never get those things you wanted either: your career with all the contributions you always imagined making, your friends whole and healthy at your side, and this beautiful family that haunts your dreams.

That's the worst part of all of this. The constant hunger and the running and hiding all for everything to be undone and reset every few days are all truly awful things. But the worst part, at least to you, is not the way you are forced to survive. The worst part is all of the unrealized potential.

He lifts his head from yours and peers down at you. You can tell he's confused that none of his usual tactics are working. You wonder if you should just tell him, but you do feel a little silly for getting so worked up over a dream.

Still though, he obviously wants to comfort you. Maybe you should let him.

"I didn't have a nightmare," you say slowly. "It was just a dream."

"A dream," Bobby echoes skeptically. You are sure he thinks you are just trying to downplay what happened.

You pull away from him so you can meet his gaze. "A dream," you repeat firmly. "A dream about what might have happened to us if the Sentinels had never come and sent the world to hell."

He looks at you with a new understanding. It occurs to you that maybe Bobby has had the same types of dreams you do. If he has, he's never mentioned them. But you understand that. It's painful to think about.

"What did you see?" he asks you quietly. He moves a hand to your hair and begins to comb through it gently. This is yet another of his usual little tricks. But now it works.

"We were teachers," you tell him, "at Xavier's. And we had a daughter."

You think you see him smile for one brief moment. "That sounds nice," he comments. Bobby sighs again and continues to run his hand through your hair. You close your eyes and try to allow him to comfort you. "You know, Kitty, that's all I wanted, too. To be a teacher and have a family. With you."

For the first time in years, you think of Rogue. Bobby's specification that it's you he wants all these pretty thoughts with reminds you that he probably once promised all of these things to her as well. But you make yourself stop thinking like that. It's not fair and it's _petty_. You're not a child.

Besides, you know Bobby loves you. It's a quiet sort of love, and it's often tinged with sadness, but it's deep. You know that he looked for you for over a year in every one of those horrible camps he could find. You know that he is the one who saved you and you know that he is the one who nursed you back to health and stayed with you every time you had a nightmare.

And in the happier moments, the ones where you aren't fighting desperately for your life, you sometimes see this look he gives you, like you are the center of his world. He puts his arms around you as you sit with the others and he gets this proud expression on his face. You know there must be other ways he has proven this to you, but you don't remember. The constant shifting of the time stream always robs you of them.

There are no doubts in your mind that the two of you would have found your way back to each other. You always do. He is yours and you are his.

It's very late now and you feel guilty about keeping him awake. You never know when you are all going to go scrambling for your lives and you know he needs his rest as much as you need yours.

You reach up and touch his face gently. "I'm sorry for keeping you up. Let's go back to sleep, okay?"

He nods and the two of you settle back down on your bunk. He pulls you close again and you don't fight him. As you drift off to sleep again you are vaguely aware of Bobby pressing a kiss to your forehead. The last thing you think is that you hope this is something you'll remember.


End file.
